FOMO schmomo

Apparently, most of our teenage and early 20-something population are running around infected, oblivious to the fact that they have this alarming syndrome. And of course, it’s being blamed on the dangerous and mental health enemies – smart phones and facebook, or other such social media.

It is said that due to facebook, and the like, being so easily accessible, the 14-25 demographic are constantly checking their friends statuses to see if anything interesting is happening that might possibly be better than what they are currently doing ie most probably working, or trying to give a fair impression of working to their boss.

I’m not saying this phenomenon doesn’t exist. Merely that ‘they’ are very, very late in labelling it.

Now, this is where I say “Back in my day….”

We didn’t have mobile phones and the internet was only accessed by those few lucky enough to have that new fangled thing called a ‘personal computer’.

Despite those seriously technological disadvantages, I was still obsessed with wanting to know what was going on in everyone’s lives. At 16, I definitely would have dropped whatever I was doing to move onto the more exciting thing I had just heard about.

You could almost say I pioneered the label ‘FOMO’ much in the same way Al Gore discovered the internet.

I am a FOMO from way back, peeps. And I have no intention of stopping now, try as I might. I have worked out that one of the reasons I don’t get my writing done is that I fear I may miss out on whatever excitement is going on elsewhere in the house and I will periodically check that, yep, husband is still watching sport or something else totally boring and go back to writing. It all stops though if anything even remotely interesting is on TV and heaven forbid I should hear laughter in the house. You are having fun?? Without me??

Yep. I have a serious case of FOMO. Do I need help? Probably.

Now, in the time it has taken me to write this blog post, I wonder what has been happening on facebook. Someone could have, you know, posted a picture of their lunch or updated their status to say they had a flat tyre on the way to work, or simply said ‘sigh. sad face’.

Have to say I was never much of a FOMO–I was too introverted. This is why writing and I get along so well. I would much rather hunker down with fictional fun than go find it out in the real world, lol.

I will say, though, that blogging has drawn me out of my shell. I’m sure it’s because I have found a group of like-minded individuals who all like to jib-jab about writing, so it’s not too distant from my comfort zone. Regardless, I don’t think I’ve “talked” this much with a bunch of strangers in my entire life!

So funny! I can relate. I used to hate missing anything, and I’d say yes to things I didn’t want to do just so I wasn’t left out. Here I am, more than five decades later, and I still have a hard time saying no sometimes, especially if favorite friends are doing it. I have to remind myself that if I said no, it’s because they are doing something I’m not interested in, and I can catch them next time around. Great reminder!

Oh yes, that’s me too! My husband sometimes says to me when I am complaining about missing out on something “but you don’t even like doing [insert said activity]” to which I heartily reply “But of course I do!” 🙂 Nice to know I am not alone in my FOMO-ness!

Thanks for popping over to my blog…it was so great to ‘meet’ such a lovely bunch over at Beth’s place 🙂